


Beasts of Burden

by tselinoyarsk (tselina)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: 'Aeris', Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Fictional Religion & Theology, Multi, Novelization, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Female Character, Warnings May Change, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tselina/pseuds/tselinoyarsk
Summary: "A single shout can crack up the mountain ice. You want to get an avalanche going? All you gotta do is make some noise. Just know that once it starts, it ain't ever gonna stop."A divergent retelling of Final Fantasy VII, including original worldbuilding and incorporating canon from Crisis Core and Advent Children.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Beasts of Burden! I hope you enjoy your stay.
> 
> The major change is that Cloud is a woman! Specifically, a trans woman, and is already living her life as a woman post-transition as of the start of the story. The details of her transition and her life before -- as well as her assimilation of Zack's memories -- will come into play later. That said, I'm used to referring to Cloud with male pronouns while speaking about the game, so I hope you will forgive any accidental pronoun follies in regards to her. I try to catch them all, but I will fix them as soon as they are found otherwise!
> 
> There's an expanded timeline now, and a few characters are either aged up or much younger than their canon counterparts. I'll try to make that obvious. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Taking one or two reactors down ain't gonna save the world, it's just gonna piss Shinra off."
> 
> "But it might change some minds."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings: None.**

When Lockhart first suggested her vagrant childhood friend join up with AVALANCHE on their next mission, Barret Wallace had thought his boss had finally lost her damn mind.

The ex-SOLDIER looked too delicate to be more than cannon fodder. Though the woman had over half a decade to Barret's nineteen, she definitely didn't look it, baby faced and big-eyed as she was. She came up to Barret's shoulder only with boots on, and even without his metal arm, she weighed about a third of him. She was all delicate waify whiteness -- not what came to mind when someone thought of when it came to the top ranks of Shinra's elite military branch.

Then Lockhart had Barret watch just what kind of tricks the stranger could do with those scrawny arms of hers and he kept the rest of his protests to himself. Or, most of his protests, anyway. He still didn't like the woman much. She had a shitty attitude about teamwork and about their overall mission, demanding an advance on her substantial payout. She'd been late to their rendezvous at the train station, had barely greeted the team with any kind of politeness, and looked bored when Barret gave the briefing prior to the train arriving at their stop.

"We're lucky to have a SOLDIER on the team," Jessie said, watching the new woman fix her wrists guards and check her Materia with the same bland expression as before. "I heard they can lift anything, train cars, broken beams."

"I heard she fought off some punks bothering the bar the other day, took her only like, a minute," Wedge added.

"Can y'all shut up and get your heads right?" Barret grunted. "I've seen her work. She's ain't that impressive."

"You're lying, BW," Biggs said, not looking up from his tablet.

Barret glared over his shoulder. "Excuse me?"

"You're lying, _and_ you're jealous."

"Why the hell would I be _jealous?_ "

"She's got _all_ of General Lockheart's attention lately." The other man grinned. "But c'mon, Captain, get real. Some SOLDIER's not going to take your place as the Grand High Badass."

"What was her name again?" Jessie asked, distracted still with the woman's dainty profile.

"Cloud Strife," Biggs said. "And you two need to quit staring at her. Because she's noticed."

Biggs wasn't kidding: Barret saw the SOLDIER's eerie, Mako-touched eyes pinned on Wedge and Jessie both. They turned away in a hurry, Jessie tucking some of her red fringe over her face to hide it and Wedge adjusting his bulk, clearing his throat.

"Hey, rookie," Barret snapped his fingers between the older soldiers and Strife. "You, too, get your head right."

"I'll do that," Strife said, with her drawling Nibel accent, a nasal cousin to Barret's own Corel dialect, "as soon as your friends stop lookin' at me like I'm their next meal."

"We weren't --" Wedge began, and Biggs nudged the boy with his foot to shut him up.

Strife made a pinched face and turned back to the window. Sector One was in two stops, so at least she had the decency to get back on task. Barret put aside his grudge to make sure his rifle attachment was in working order. He focused on making a fist and the gun responded smoothly, the barrels spinning outward.

"Hey, watch that thing," Wedge said, eyes wide. He backed up towards the wall. "That's the new one, isn't it?"

Jessie cuffed him. "He knows what he's doing!"

"Well ain't we all glad for that," Strife said, behind the others now, her hand to the sword grip on her back to adjust it. "We gonna keep talkin' and gawkin', or are we ready?"

"You ain't the boss right now, SOLDIER," Barret said. "She may be vouching for you, but the General didn't put you in charge of this mission, you might recall. She gave it to _me_. You might wanna rethink your tone."

Strife shrugged. "A'ight. You're loud 'n clear, _Cap'n._ "

Barret sucked in a breath, prayed to the Saints for more patience with the newcomer, and took his position as the train stopped into Sector One's Industrial District.

The station was easy to take. Barret didn't need to lift a finger. Jessie and Biggs subdued the security guards in an eyeblink. Wedge proved his size wasn't just for show, dragging the unconscious guards and tying them up back-to-back. The three of them checked with each other and darted off to begin their assault on Shinra’s electronic security next.

"Told them not to run off in a damn group," Barret muttered, but yelling at them would just draw more attention.

"They ain't real soldiers, what'd you expect, efficiency?" Strife unsheathed her blade, taking a few practice swipes with it, the sheer width of the weapon sending a tangible burst of air against Barret's back. He clenched his fist again at his side, the machine gun attachment whirling in response.

"Listen, Strife," Barret said, glad they were alone now for him to speak his mind, "I don't trust you. And it ain't 'cause you worked for Shinra."

"Color me surprised," Strife said.

"It's 'cause you got a nasty attitude," Barret said, turning around, "and you don't give a shit about the mission, you're only doin' this for the money the General said you'd get. I know you're leaving once this mission's over."

"Y'sure got me." Strife smiled, her bright eyes slitting. "I don't give a shit about AVALANCHE 'cause your mission don't make sense. Taking one or two reactors down ain't gonna save the world, it's just gonna piss Shinra off."

"But it might change some minds," Barret said, tamping down his temper. "Come on, get your ass in gear and stick behind me. I don't need to hear more of your bullshit."

"Lead the way, then, sir," Strife said, twirling her arm to bow at the waist.

"Motherfucker," Barret swore under his breath, before jogging out to meet the rest of the team.

They'd rehearsed enough in 7th Heaven's basement, but stage fright seemed to grip Wedge pretty tight. Jessie's hands shook as she cracked the door codes. Even Biggs's face was pale. Barret rallied himself to corral them back to the task at hand.

"Hey, folks," he said, clapping them on the back one by one. "Looks good so far. Y'all are doin' great."

Jessie's smile was hopeful. "Thanks, BW."

“Now, you let me know the plan again, team?”

“Keep the area clear while you and Strife head into the belly of the whale,” Biggs said.

“That’s right.” Barret looked at Strife, who was listening, intent as a stalking cat. “Okay, Strife. Like we talked about. You ready to go?”

“Mmm,” Strife said.

Barret didn’t care what dismissive noises she made, as long as she listening. Either she’d follow him in, or she’d get fucked up on the way. He couldn’t let the latter happen: the General was counting on him to make sure her friend got back in one piece. That made working with Strife _just_ a little more unbearable.

Despite the tension, Barret and Strife worked well in sync. He’d lift her up into vent hatches and scaffolding to allow her to scout ahead. She’d return to unlock a door or unlatch a ladder, and they’d move together in silence. By the time they’d made it to the reactor room itself, they’d successfully navigated around most of the security. Barret regretted Lockhart’s decision less and less.

When the two of them did meet resistance, it was unavoidable. At the reactor core, a small detachment of soldiers greeted them at the base of a maintenance ladder.

“Get down here,” one of the soldiers barked. Obedient, Barret lept down, holding his arms up in surrender. They had their rifles pointed at him, but they weren’t firing. _They must want us alive._ He didn’t think too hard on what that would mean.

“Who sent you?”

“I ain’t telling. Hey --!" Barret growled, turning to the guard patting him down. "You gotta pay to go further than that."  

Another soldier waved his gun in his face, posturing. “Hey, where’s your little friend?”

Anyone else would think the jittering beam above them both were just wires settling near the open vents, but Barret knew better. Strife wasn’t going to leave him hanging. “What little friend?”

“The woman that was with you.”

“Don’t even know what you’re talkin’ about,” Barret said. “Ain’t nothin’ little about her.”

Strife was behind them, had been while they’d been distracted with Barret. The flat edge of her sword swept at their ankles. Three went down with a shout, their guns clattering to the side and over the rail, and the rest scattered to regroup. Strife and Barret’s eyes met over the panicking soldiers. She pulled something out from her hip bag and Barret’s human hand went to the respirator he’d had hooked at his belt.

The smoke bomb cracked against the ground, Strife and the soldiers now obscured by it. Barret took off down the rail bridge, breathing through his respirator, his eyes stinging. Taking shelter under one of the downturned pipes, he watched as the dust settled near the ladders. Strife was the last one standing among a pile of unconscious guards, twirling her sword behind her before sheathing it again.

“Hey, Strife, stop showing off,” Barret called out. “I got the plastic ready.”

“Gotcha,” Strife said, and started down the gangway.

Halfway to Barret, she stopped dead in her tracks, wavered, them stumbled towards one of the rails. Barret cursed and jogged forward.

“Fuckin’ Saints alive, get it together, Strife,” he said, swallowing his panic. “We’re almost done here!”

Strife pulled away from Barret’s grasp, as if he’d burned her. She stared, eyes jittering in their sockets as if blind. The Mako rim around her pupils nearly took up the entire iris. If Barret wasn’t already on edge, he would be now.

“Sorry,” Strife said, her voice weak, then she cleared her throat. “Shit, sorry. Must -- must be the steam.”

"Didn't figure a SOLDIER to be so delicate," Barret said, stepping back from her. She scowled at him, annoyed; it seemed to put her back on her feet.

"Whatever," she said, steadying herself on her feet, "let's just get this thing set."

Strife set up the explosive while Barret kept an eye out for more guards, made sure the unconscious soldiers didn’t move.

"We got thirty minutes," Strife said, dusting off her trousers. “It should give us enough time to --”

Whatever she’d said after, Barret couldn’t hear over the terrible, teeth-chattering noise of scraping metal. Something climbed up the inner walls of the reactor, and the two of them went back to back, weapons at the ready, trying to locate the threat.

They didn’t wait long. The grates beneath their feet shuddered as one of Shinra’s security mechs landed before them. Nothing like this had been in Jessie’s intel. It was shaped like a scorpion, buffed bright as a waxed cherry. The mech skittered towards them, making a spine-curling electronic screech, its pinchers clacking.

“Looks like it’s tail’s done equipped with a laser,” Strife said, adjusting her grip on the sword. “It’s gonna try to take you down by the knees, so watch out.”

“Thanks for the warnin’,” Barret said, checking the cartridge on his gun arm and steadying it at the elbow, taking aim. “Only got so many limbs left to lose.”

Strife laughed, a bark of morbid amusement. “You said that, not me!”

“Glad you’re listening,” Barret said, his grin more like a grimace on his face as he sent the first spray of bullet fire from his gun-arm towards the mech, “‘cause I’m gonna need you to show me what you’re bein’ paid to do, SOLDIER!”

Strife answered by launching herself forward into the fray, under Barret’s second round of cover fire. She didn’t disappoint.

-

The job ended as well as it could have, after the surprise security mech. Barret wasn't all bluster, as Cloud thought at first, though she should've known better. They made them tough in Corel, like they did in Nibel. He was still a teenager, though, and it’d rankled her to have to listen to him. At least at first. They’d gotten along once they stopped talking to one another, at least. It’d been a good fight.

The other three were too nervous to do more than their jobs and fell apart towards the end. She and Barret had to pick them up from their panic to clear them out of the reactor before it blew. It’d made her headache worse, and she wasn’t about to let Barret see her like that again. She brushed the group of fbefore they made it to the Sector Eight train station, wanting time alone.

Cloud and Barret had been a good team, and there was no doubt the young man had his charms, but anything beyond that had to end before it began. She couldn’t afford to make friends. There was nothing Cloud could do about being attached to Tifa, but that didn’t mean she had to extend herself to anyone else. It’d be a terrible idea for everyone. Until Cloud knew exactly where she’d come from and why she’d shown up at the Sector Seven train station, barely able to speak and move from Mako poisoning, she’d just bring down trouble, and Tifa and her friends would end up just like _him_ \--

_Live for me. All right? You gotta do that for me._

The headache came back with a vengeance, this time a blinding pain behind her eyes. It had to be the stress, the pollution. _Something_ that wasn’t linked to voices in her head. Cloud ducked into an alleyway, muffling a pained whimper against her wrist guard as she tried to ride out the migraine.

_Hey, don’t push yourself, little lady. You look tired. Hey --_

“Hey! Hey there,” a woman’s voice said, from beyond the tinny sound of static in Clould’s ears. “Hellooo? Are you okay?”

“Huh.” Cloud pushed herself up with a jolt. “Wha --”

Another woman was in the alleyway with her. She looked a little too clean to be there, or anywhere below the Plate. She was about Cloud’s height, dressed in cheerful pink and red, carrying something blurry and white at her elbow.

“Oh, good, you’re not going to throw up,” the woman said, hand to her chest. “Or, are you? You’re not, right?”

Cloud waved a hand. “‘M fine,” she said. “Jus’ gimme a second.”

“Just doing my neighbourly duty,” the woman said, perky. “You just looked a little drunk, is all.”

“I ain’t,” Cloud grit her teeth.

“Aww, no need to get mad.” The stranger stuck out her lower lip. “You need any help?”

“No ma’am,” Cloud said, righting herself, arranging her uniform. “I’ll be just fine. Just on my way to the station, s’all.”

“Oh-kay, if you’re sure… wow!” The other woman leaned over Cloud’s shoulder. “What’s that? That’s one _big_ sword.”

Cloud took a step back. “S’an heirloom.”

"Sure looks like it." The stranger tilted her head, auburn fringe briefly covering her face, and a set of very green eyes. “Bet you could net a lot of gil, doing a street performance with it.”

“This ain’t for showing off.”

The woman sighed. “Which is a shame, because I could use someone directing traffic my way. I need a few more sales tonight, is all.” She held up her basket, so Cloud could finally see its contents: it was filled to the brim with crisp, white lilies.

Cloud raised an eyebrow. “Maybe ‘cause folk don’t see flowers ‘round here much. How do you get them to grow under the Plate?”

“It just takes a little magic, that’s all," the woman said, shoulders wiggling a little. “Can I interest you to buy? I’ll give you a discount. One gil for one flower."

It was tempting. Cloud wondered what Tifa would think if she brought home something this rare -- it might even save her from getting a lecture about blowing off Barret and the team at the train station.

Cloud patted her sides down, coming up empty. "I'd buy one, but I got no money on me. Sorry, ma'am."

"Oh, boy, that's what they all say," the woman said, with a full-body, dramatic sigh. "Ohhh, well. Why don't I give you one for free?"

Cloud didn’t have a chance to refuse. The woman leaned forward and tucked a blossom behind her ear. Up close, Cloud could smell fresh earth and something achingly familiar, a woodsy scent that threatened to cause another blackout. Cloud balked backwards, hitting her back against the grimy alley wall.

"Thanks, I -- guess I owe you,” Cloud stammered, trying to find her ground. "Listen, you should get out of the area. Somethin's gone down, don't know what, but it ain't very safe."

"Oh, yeah, people are running around like chickens without their heads,” the woman said. “I wonder if it has to do with Sector One?"

She pointed up. On one of the cracked street screens was a news report, showing the guttering smoke of the ruined Sector One Reactor, tickers running below in Aljunoor, Mideeli, and Wutan too fast for Cloud to take in any of their meaning. The picture was enough. A little shiver of worry ran up Cloud’s spine.

“Ma’am, do you know where the train station is?” Cloud cleared her throat. “I figure it’s about time for the last train home.”

“Well you go up this alley, take a left, there’s a bridge that overlooks -- oh. Wow!” The other woman raised herself on her tip-toes, looking at the street beyond. “The guards are sure out in force, huh?”

“Are they,” Cloud said, as casual as she could. “Good for them.”

There was a pause, and amid the usual din of Midgar life beneath the Plate, Cloud could hear the crackle of radios hissing orders from soldier to soldier.

“You _know_ , I didn’t want to say anything before,” the peddler said, her voice low, “but you look more than a little suspicious.”

“Do I, huh?”

“Yeahhh,” the woman said. “If you want that last train home, you’re going to have to make a run for it. You don’t have much time.”

Cloud didn’t have to be prompted further. Without bidding the flower peddler goodbye, she bolted towards the bridge as fast as she could. The white flower tucked in her hair flew free, the petals scattering like feathers from a bird’s wing, startled into desperate flight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world was dying beneath their feet, and it didn’t take some Cetran oracle reading the stars for everyone to know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings: Canon-typical violent imagery.**
> 
> Religion's a big part of this particular re-imagining, so I've done some world building on that and hope to expand on it soon! Also, I hope to share a picture of how I see the "Rims" working in Midgar. For now: Rust Rim is another name for the Slums, and Steel Rim is the exposed Plate, above Copper.

7th Heaven was empty. That would be suspicious any other day of the week, but on Saint Tyr’s day, bars like Tifa’s were closed. The dry law was some archaic leftover from the Advent’s early beginnings and affected corner stores and restaurants, too, both banned from selling alcohol. In Midgar, no one was allowed to imbibe on a holy day of reflection, so as to not dull the feeling of their suffering. To understand one’s struggle was to become closer to holiness. Not that anyone below the Plate had time to reflect, being mired in said struggles, day in and day out.

Though bad for business, the dry law gave Tifa a rather convenient cover for AVALANCHE meetings and missions. No one expected her to keep the bar open, not even for meals, so there was little scrutiny on why the door was bars and the windows shuddered. And while Tifa wasn’t religious, she saw the poetry in retaliating towards the never-ending “scared strife” on Tyr’s Day itself. 

Barret was Tifa's only company after the meeting. Everyone else remained downstairs, too exhausted and heartsick to do more than sleep. Their celebration had been cut somber and short, once the death toll began to run on the news. Jessie, excited about her bomb’s initial success, had quickly sequestered herself into the barracks. Wedge had gone to comfort her, though he didn’t appear to be doing much better. 

Biggs did the best out of the three. He’d been hired out from a former Shinra security detail, and had a tougher stomach for tragedy and a better understanding of Shinra’s up close and personal cruelty. Still, he’d spent the remainder of the evening staring into his half-finished beer, quiet as man before a tomb.

The weight of responsibility was something Tifa had steeled herself for, and she remained as unmoved as possible. Barret, too. Both of them had seen Shinra's exploits in a more intimate way than the rest of the team. They’d seen the body count in person, rather than on a news ticker. They’d smelled the smoke, the burning flesh, the chemical dust.

Tifa had no regrets, not that she could go back if she wanted to. It was real. It was happening. AVALANCHE had challenged Shinra’s dominance, had done so in the seat of the company’s power. Either it would bring people to their door with open hands or loaded weapons, and Tifa was ready for both.

She wasn’t ready for another conversation with Barret about Cloud, though. Which was happening now, too.

“She still ain’t right, y’know,” Barret muttered. “Strife, I mean.”

“What do you mean? I heard you two got along just fine,” Tifa said, wiping the same spot on the counter for the umptenth time. 

"I guess we did,” Barret huffed, rubbing the stubble on his chin. "I’ll admit, Strife’s good in a fight. She even let me run the show a little once we got in deep, I appreciate that. But ‘fight’ ain't all we're needing, Tifa, you know that."

Tifa looked at her gloved hands, flexed her knuckles like she was preparing for a brawl. Maybe she was. "Yes, I know."

"I'm sayin' all this because -- she had a fit, boss. Just near fell over on me right at the reactor itself. Her eyes went -- wrong.” Barret leaned over the counter, his dark skin gone a little ashen. "And then she disappeared right after we cleared the building. Didn’t know if she’d make it back at all -- though she'd had another fit and fallen over, gotten caught or worse.”

“But she came back.”

“Lookin’ like a hunted rabbit, sure.”

“Like _you_ felt any different.”

“Damn it, boss, you ain’t listenin’ to me,” Barret said through his teeth. “She’s good but it ain’t worth it if she falls down on the job! Her sick spells are a risk.”

"I _know_ it’s a liability to have her on the team. I get it.”

"Do you, General?" Barret looked at her frankly, dark eyes older than they had rights to be at his age. "You're protective of her. For lots of reasons. Makes sense. I’d be too. But you can’t pretend she ain’t sick.”

"We need her," Tifa said. "Just -- look, next time, maybe I should go with you. I can handle her."

"Hell no, you’re not going," Barret said, firmly. "We need you here, makin' plans and givin’ orders. We're your grunts, General."

"Well, I wouldn't be able to do it without a capable Captain."

"Don't butter me up, thinkin' it'll help you," Barret said, but he smiled, shy at the compliment. "Look -- just talk to the woman, a'ight? Tell her she's gotta take better care of herself.”

"Look, I make cocktails, not miracles," Tifa said. "But -- I think she's almost done in the bath. I can go talk to her now?"

"Thanks," Barret said, patting the counter. "I'm gonna check in on Marlene before bed."

"With how loud I was, I'm surprised she didn't wake up," Tifa murmured.

"She was born in a mining town," Barret said, serious. "We sleep as still as stone, or we don’t sleep at all."

"Hey, I grew up in a mining town, and I sleep lightly."

Barret grinned. "Well, 'cause y'all are softer in Nibel, I guess."

Tifa tossed a wadded napkin at Barret's shaved head as he walked upstairs, chuckling all the way. She heard his boots creak on the floorboards, the sleepy treble of Marlene's voice as she bid Barret goodnight.

 _She’s who we’re fighting for_ , Tifa reminded herself. Marlene was too young to remember what Shinra took from her. Tifa and Barret wanted to be able to look her in the eyes one day to tell her she wouldn’t lose anything more.

Tifa finished her prep for tomorrow’s mid-day opening, locked the front door and made her way to the back half of the bar. The washroom was a slapdash thing on a covered porch, heavy insulating plastic stapled to the boards to keep it warm.

Tifa could practically feel her hair begin to frizzle from her braid as she entered the humid bath. Cloud languished in the tub, almost invisible in the steam. She didn’t make a noise when Tifa came in.

“If you wanted a show, you’re a little late,” Cloud said. “I’m ‘bout to get out.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, girlie,” Tifa said, grabbing one of the towels from the drying rack for her friend. "I heard you gave Barret a heart attack."

"If I did,” Cloud drawled, her eyes still closed, “he needs to get his ticker looked at. He's too young for that kinda mess. Think it’s maybe ‘cause he’s stressed? Dunno where he’d get it from.”

Tifa kicked the bottom of the tub. "You know what I mean, Cloud. Barret was talking about how you had a fit on him. You spooked the poor guy.”

“Yeah-huh,” Cloud said. She opened one blue eye. “I can hear y’all all the way in there, you know.”

“I -- forgot you hear so well.” Tifa sighed, dragging up an old folding chair to slouch down in it. “But it doesn’t matter if you did. Barret’s right. You’re a liability while you’re still coming down from the Mako overdose.”

Cloud sloshed around in the water before finally pulling herself out of the bath, taking the towel from Tifa with a nod of thanks. She had her back to Tifa while she dried herself. 

“It weren’t like that when I first got my treatments for SOLDIER,” she said. “I -- like I said, can’t remember how I got so sick.”

“Don’t think about it, Cloud,” Tifa said quickly. “You know what happens when you try.”

“I know.” The other woman sighed, picking at her calloused hands, now pink from the hot water. “Saints, but ain’t it a nuisance that I can’t? I don’t remember my first weeks here, either, ‘cept when I woke up and everyone was talking about that ‘pretty boy’ you found at the trainyard, and I had to tell y’all otherwise.”

Tifa winced. “I’m still sorry about that, Cloud. I didn’t know you were --”

Cloud shook her head. “Tifa, ain’t no way you could’ve known how I was living before this. 'Sides, people adjusted right away… which I didn’t much expect.”

“This place may be no more than a shanty town,” Tifa said, bumping Cloud’s side, friendly. “But people live as they want, and they do the same for others.”

"It's nice though," Cloud said. "Nobody thinks a thing about it down here. I'm just one of them. I'll take that over clear skies, most days at least.”

"I wish I'd have known when we were young," Tifa said, taking Cloud’s hand. “I would’ve been happy to help.”

“I wish I had known,” Cloud said, with a soft, self-depreciating laugh. “Would made a lotta things make sense. But it wouldn’t’ve worked in Nibel.”

“You don’t know that.”

Cloud’s jaw clenched; Tifa knew that she’d said the wrong thing. It was easy enough for Tifa to think their sleepy mining town would’ve accepted Cloud’s truth, when it had long been burned to ash.

“Come on,” Tifa said quickly, trying to stop the awkward silence before it began, “you need to get some rest. We have to get back to work tomorrow on the next job.”

"How you know I'm gonna stick around for the next one?" Cloud muttered, running a free hand through her damp hair.

"Because," Tifa said, leaning over to kiss her cheek, "you looove my money."

“Will your money get me a better bed in this hole in the wall and a palette on the floor?” Cloud elbowed Tifa’s back. “I can’t get no sleep here. My roommate snores like a sick cow.”

“I do not,” Tifa said. “That’s libel.”

“ _‘Slander is said, libel is read’_ ,” Cloud quoted, affecting a posh Aljunoor accent, every word perfectly enunciated. “I thought you would be aware of that, Miss Tiffany.”

“Y’should’ve become a lawyer, then,” Tifa replied, letting her Nibel accent into her words, a little. “You sure would make more money.”

“I dunno, I’m doin’ pretty good now,” Cloud said, patting her hair dry. She’d kept it short, and once she’d hung her towel, it’d already started curling in about fifty different directions from her scalp. “Y’all do pay well. Fifteen hundred’s enough to get me settled somewhere in Copper Rim as a merc...”

“You really want to do mercenary work?”

Cloud shrugged. “‘S what I’d be good at. Ain’t gonna start waitressin’, if you’re wondering.”

“You’re definitely cute enough to get something on Steel Rim, easy,” Tifa teased. “But I’d feel betrayed, if you weren’t working for me.”

“I ain’t just arm candy, Tiff,” Cloud said, prim, tossing her towel back on the rack. She pulled on her borrowed linen night-shift, a soft color that nearly matched her pinked skin. It like she’d materialized from the steam itself, all pale, a sylph born of the aether.

Tifa entertained the idea that Cloud _was_ some kind of otherworldly being, here to bring both fortune and ruin as the fae creatures were wont to do. Her presence was already a little bit of both: Cloud’s SOLDIER training was invaluable to AVALANCHE, but the other woman tethered Tifa to a life she thought she’d left behind.

Tifa _had_ thought she’d cut her losses when she’d relocated to Midgar, focused on doing whatever she could to destabilize Shinra. The careless way they treated those in their ever-expanding “kingdom”, the degree of how willing they were to let small towns rot when they’d outgrown their use… that was just the beginning. The world was dying beneath their feet, and it didn’t take some Cetran oracle reading the stars for everyone to know it.

“Tifa? You’re shaking.”

Tifa nearly shouted when Cloud grabbed her wrist. The other woman’s grip was gentle, firm. There was no trace of the sickness that Barret had seen earlier that day, a steadiness in Cloud’s expression that Tifa didn’t feel herself. She coveted it as much as it comforted her.

“It’s --” _Nothing_ , she stopped herself from saying, because both of them knew that’d be a lie. “I’m just thinking of all that fire and smoke, you know. Except this time it’s something I’ve done. To kids, to their parents --”

“Tiffany Garnet Lockhart,” Cloud said, “I ain’t gonna say what you’re doin’ is right. But -- look.” She sighed. “Barret said somethin’ to me before we went in to the Rector. And I’d ask you not to tell him I thought more on it.”

“I’ll _try_ not to tell him he’s been inspiring people,” Tifa said, with a crooked smile.

“He said it don’t matter if one or two reactors goin’ up will just make Shinra come down harder. “ Cloud ruffled her hair, little beads of water flicking everywhere like dew. “What it’ll do, he said, would make plenty of folks think. I figure he meant it’ll make ‘em decide if they want to do somethin’ themselves, instead of lettin’ some rebel assholes decide things for ‘em.”

“BW’s good with a speech, you have to admit,” Tifa said. “He’s young, passionate, and smart. I was lucky to pick him up.”

“Sure thing, as long as he don’t get too cocky.”

“He’s a nineteen year old boy,” Tifa said, opening the door into the bar, “I don’t think they can help that.”

The room they shared was cramped, but cozy. Cloud fussed about with her plush floor palette. Tifa envied how decedent it looked, heaped with colorful patchwork quilts and old satin pillows, but she relegated herself to her bed. Cloud went down almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Tifa found sleep difficult, and not for the reasons she’d thought. She could still feel Cloud’s grasp around her wrist, the phantom touch like an anchor to a life she had already forfeit to her cause.

Tifa thought seeing Cloud again would bring her joy, relief. Instead, it felt too much like responsibility, one she hadn’t been ready to take on. Cloud needed her still, if not for her health, than for her company. So for now, she’d have to leave her dreams of martyrdom to the Saints. Or at least, she’d try.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the rot, the greed -- Midgar had been beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings: Depictions and discussion of death.**
> 
> Author Notes: Tried to explain the structure of Midgar in this, as well as lay more hints about the religions and the tensions about the same. The mysterious princess is exactly who you think it is, too. ;)

Before Rudolphus Shinra had discovered the fount of Mako beneath his patch of rocky land, Midgar had needed no masters. Before he’d taken up his stolen name and began to bleed the Lifestream dry, profiting on its use, Midgar had flourished. Before Shinra's son Barbarossa had torn nations apart with evangelical fervor in the search for the Cetra's lost wisdom, before his grandson Rufus was able to hold his head up from his lonely crib; before the rot, the greed -- Midgar had been beautiful.

Now, it was only a memory of green, of golden grain, orchards of green leaves and red apples, dams that funneled clear water into rich brown soil. Now, it was all black charcoal and grey dust, a barren halo around the smoking bullet wound that was Midgar’s only city, eponymous with what was once an area of honest toil. The farmers, the factory workers, all were herded towards the capitol eventually. When Barbarossa Shinra came to power in his father’s final hours and began turning Midgar in to the Temple of Mako in earnest, those people who once lived free on the land were shut out from the sun by the Plate.

Midgar’s Plate was a like a regal dais, with its prominent citizens raised loftily in the center. The commoners on Steel Rim were lucky to live on top of the Plate, were able to crane their necks up to the sky, only to see the glare of the Sterling city built along the sides of the pillar, the Platinum Jewel of the Shinra’s stronghold at its very spire. Directly below them, less fortunates toiled on Copper Rim, though even they still had solid metal ground to walk on. At the bottom of the city, with their feet firmly in the scorched and salted earth, were the denizens of Rust Rim. If it had any other name, it had gone out of parlance: the other name was simply The Slums, and almost everyone there preferred it to Rust, the latter word evoking decay, the concept of which the people needed no reminder.

Reeve Tuesti remembered the real name of the bottom level. Of course: he’d help design the slices of the caste-driven cake that was Midgar proper. _Iron Rim_ , the design had said, scrawled and smeared through by his left-leaning hand. He’d had dreams of making it viable for growing produce, having Mako be routed under certain areas to make the soil fertile again. Water from the drain pipes above could be used to irrigate with only a little filtering; there could be thin drop shafts to provide the sunlight. It was a fine idea, and it would have the city rely less on Copper Rim’s greenhouse facilities, and on expensive imports. It would give jobs to Iron citizens, ones they could be proud of. Ones that connected them not only to the land, but to their forefathers.

Barbarossa hated it. He’d hated it as a young man and he scoffed at Reeve now if he brought it up. “Tuesti,” he’d say, “we’re fine just the way we are, don’t you think?” And he’d blow cigar smoke into Reeve’s face and chuckle, and Reeve was reminded of different, less pleasant times, when he’d first come to Shinra as a much younger man. At least now, as Director of Urban Development, he could ask to leave the room without much grovelling.

Today he hadn’t bothered excusing himself from their morning meeting. He was too engrossed in trying to quantify the damage done to Sector One’s Reactor and its surrounding areas, and it wasn’t as if the President was listening to anyone. The explosion had sent Barbarossa into a near-catatonic state the night before, had paralyzed him with the fear that his great and holy plans to bring Midgar closer to the Reunion. The President spent most of the morning in feverish prayer, planning to head towards the Slums for a visit to his fortune-teller. Who was, quite conveniently, stationed in a Shinra-run brothel.

 _I’ll have to send someone to supervise him,_ Reeve thought, unable to stop a brief smile of idle, premature triumph. _I know just the agent, too..._

“Director Tuesti.”

A familiar voice reached him as he exited the board room. He knew who it was without looking, the man perfumed with the subtle scent of prayer incense.

“Sam,” Reeve said, smiling briefly. “It’s good to see you.”

Samuel Tseng did not look his age, though it wasn’t necessarily that he was old. It was that Reeve could not remember the younger man any other way. Only his hair had grown, showing the march of time.

“Is it?” Tseng said. “You know why I’m here.”

“Oh, actually, I don’t,” Reeve said, fighting a yawn. He gestured to Tseng. “Come on, let’s go to my office. I haven’t had breakfast, I’ll call it up with some tea first. Then you can tell me the bad news.”

Tseng sighed, a little impatient, but he covered it up well. “Yes, of course, Director,” he said.

“Love how you don’t bother with the ‘sir’,” Reeve muttered, as he swiped his gold keycard into the elevator control.

“Have I ever?”

Reeve laughed. “No, not really.”

He’d known Tseng since the boy had been ‘adopted’ from his noble Wutai family, so many years ago. But like Reeve, he’d stubbornly kept the lilt of his native accent, his Aljunoor clipped and loping in places, like a proper ‘savage’. It confused people to discover Tseng was leader of the Turks, the Shinra military’s special enforcement agency. Reeve didn’t have much jurisdiction over Tseng -- Urban Development was only a step up in the chain of command above the defunct Space Exploration division -- but his history with Tseng was enough to garner some respect. Some.

Tea and breakfast was first. They talked idly about the disappointing crops from Kalm and danced around the admission that Midgar was at last draining the vitality of the final fertile area before the Mythril Mountains. When Reeve was finished eating, Tseng told him something he didn’t expect to hear the day after Reactor One had been decimated by terrorists.

“It’s being moved up?”

Tseng twisted his teacup briefly, inhaling before he spoke again. “No, only the move itself. I just received the news this morning. I haven’t told Rufus yet.”

“The wedding isn’t until Month Eleven!” Reeve said. “We were expecting her in Ten.”

“Yes,” Tseng said. “It’s not like she’ll be co-habiting with the Vice President. The church forbids it.”

“Is that sort of thing a stoning offense, now?” Reeve muttered. 

Tseng’s look silenced him; the young man was adept at making anyone button their mouth up. “The Advent Church’s former tenants have been -- polished -- in Reunion, as you are well aware, Director Tuesti. As all of us are aware.”

He tossed his head towards the windows, where both of them knew there were wiretaps. There had always been. Reeve, Mideeli-born, was always toeing the line of blasphemy. But there were circumstances that allowed him a pass, even with the President. Yet lately Barbarossa’s patience had thinned, and Tseng was doing him a favor by reminding him of that.

“My thanks to the Goddess,” Reeve muttered, “for Her blessings upon us all. Well, why tell me? It’s not exactly my business, the wedding plans. Director Saintsing is taking care of most of it.”

“Ah, but she’s not in charge of security, is she?" Tseng's mouth quirked. "I’m here to ask you to look into your maps for a sector of Sterling that is -- impenetrable, outside and in.”

“Are we that concerned about her safety?” Reeve frowned. “Not that I mind searching…”

Tseng’s smile was lopsided. “Apparently, the princess has -- similar talents to our young master -- and she will need around-the-clock surveillance to make sure she her virtues are not compromised.”

The lightened mood was appreciated, as much as the warning. Reeve chuckled. “Oh, well that’s unfortunate. She must be crawling out of her own skin about this entire thing.”

“She will be glad when the Goddess embraces her as she becomes one with the Shinra family, and to the Reunion,” Tseng said, though his monotone betrayed mild displeasure. He, too, had been ‘converted’ as a boy, and though he wore the ruby of the Mother’s service on his forehead -- the only way he’d be sanctioned to protect the Shinra family as closely as he did -- he went through the motions of the state religion in practice only. The Wutai gods never had anything to do with the remnants of the Cetra’s holy empire, having staved off the approach of colonists for centuries. Until recently, of course. And it would only get worse from there.

“I’ll look into it,” Reeve said, at last. “I’m sure there’s somewhere that can be secured. Not that it’ll help if she’s trained like a proper Wutai warrior. Which I believe women are supposed to.”

“They are,” Tseng said, “or, they were. She is, as we are often reminded by the press, very young and might have grown up in the _proper_ way. We will see.”

“ _Proper._ ” Reeve sighed, out of words. “Well, I’m sure you must get to your morning post. I thank you for your time, Tseng. I really do appreciate your help. Will you give your boys my regards?”

“Of course.” Tseng got up, and then just as soon stopped still, looking at the far corner of Reeve’s office. There was an altar there, a set of photographs fixed above it, people there he honored weekly, in the old ways.

The younger man’s face relaxed in renewed pain, looking for a moment a empty. He steeled himself, took something out of his suit collar, and said, “Well, I’ll be leaving. If you’ll excuse me, Director.”

Reeve’s door opened and closed, yet Tseng remained where he stood. He put a thumbnail-sized audio scrambler on the altar top. He had little time to tell Reeve what it was that should be kept secret from their superiors.

“A few months ago, there was -- an aberration in Heidegger’s daily reports. I noticed it, and kept it from him as long as I could. But it’s come down the line that there was an issue at one of the first reactors. Hojo caught wind of it.”

“So?” Reeve didn’t like the ugly anxiety and crept in his stomach, making his meal settle wrong.

“They’re doing a recall.”

“A recall.” The words didn’t make sense to Reeve at first. He was not in the know regarding the other departments, and he didn’t much care to be. Important things trickled down to him when necessary. But the intensity in Tseng’s stare, the tightness of his face -- where he stood, near the images of people long passed, lead Reeve to join his train of thought.

“No,” he said. That was all he could say, mouth dropping. “No, Sam, you’ve got to do something.”

“I am going to do something,” Tseng said, his voice, usually so well trained, wavering. “I’m going to do what I’m ordered to.”

There was a soft chime from the scrambler: their time was up. Tseng picked it up, pocketed it. Reeve’s door opened yet again, as if Tseng had returned, sealing the ruse he’d left the Director’s office in the first place.

“I’m sorry, Director,” Tseng said, “I believe I’ve misplaced something.”

“Yes,” Reeve said, smoothing a hand across his desk. There was another photograph taped there, beneath the glass. Three children amid another memory of green, forever smiling before all was lost.

Tseng lingered, as if wanting to share some kind of solace, but they both knew there was nothing either of them could say.

Reeve tried. “Tseng?”

Tseng stopped at the door, ready to make his real departure. His hand touched the door frame. “Yes?”

“Take care not to misplace anything else.”

From a distance, Reeve could see Tseng’s clench briefly, white knuckles at the open fingers of his gloves. He could hear him swallow something back, an undirected burst of anger or worse, but Tseng was too well composed to ever let his emotions rise above a simmer.

“Yes,” Tseng said, then quietly added, “sir.”

The door shut behind him with a click, and Reeve was left alone.

-

Barret left early that next morning for his weekly assignment. He’d attend the day’s holy hours, then spend the rest of the afternoon scouting for gossip, and return with the week’s groceries. It was an effective means of intel gathering, and Barret made it effortless. He was handsome, his Corel accented Aljunoor a novelty, and even riled up he was charming.

The assignment gave him great pride, and he’d never missed a day. So when Barret returned at the tail end of lunch rush, empty handed and a good five hours earlier than his usual rendezvous time, something had gone wrong. He waved Tifa into the back room of the bar and barely managed to close the door behind him before gasping: " _We have to move it up_."

Tifa moved them further into the kitchen. “Breathe, BW,” she said. 

Barret stooped and grabbed his knees. "We have to move it up," he repeated, between breaths. "Tomorrow, the day after at latest. It can't wait.”

Tifa waved her hands. “Oh-kay, so, let’s pretend you didn’t just freak everyone in the bar out to tell me this, and pretend that --”

“No, Boss. It’s gotta happen soon or it won’t happen.”

Tifa tapped her foot. “Well I don’t understand, because you haven’t told me jack shit so far. You know we can’t just drop everything to --”

"Tifa, they're bringin' the _Mizukami no Ohime_ here," Barret said, looking up at Tifa with wide eyes. “ _This weekend._ ”

"Mizuka --” Tifa’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, shit." 

One didn’t have to know much Northern Wutan to know what that name was, or what it meant. It was given to the girl-heir of the ruling Kisaragi clan, the woman that was reserved to be Leviathan’s bride. Now that prestige and title were no more. Shinra had stripped the Wutai nations of their power -- and their religions -- when the war had ended.

Now, the Kisaragi heir was to become a pious, obedient wife under the watchful gaze of Reunion’s Mother Goddess. There'd been another reason AVALANCHE had chosen this early in the year to act. The winter marriage between Rufus Shinra and Kisaragi Yuuhi was more dangerous to the world than half of Shinra's weapons arsenal. There’d be nowhere to go without pissing on Shinra-controlled land after that, and any plot against Shinra would force the Wutai to act. They would do it without hesitation, and if their princess was in danger, they’d double their efforts.

If AVALANCHE hesitated now, if they didn’t act before the Wutan retainer came to Midgar, they would be snuffed out in the night.

Barret passed his metal hand over his scalp. "I just saw on the jumbotron, it’s already big fuckin' deal. Covered up the news from last night totally. She's gonna be placed in Sterling until the wedding. They're already blockin' off streets.”

"Shit," Tifa said, pounding her hand on the table. "Shit, shit, _shit_."

"Hey, keep it down, Boss," Barret hissed. "Ain't enough people out there to hide our noise right now."

Tifa shoved her hand through her bangs, tugging on them in frustration. “They can jack up security without people suspecting anything is wrong," she said. "This is the perfect cover."

“An’ it’ll piss the Wutai Alliance off, if anything goes wrong.” Barret said. "They're riled enough they had to give up one of theirs to the Shinra in the first place. Last thing they need is a dead princess --”

“Wait,” Tifa said. “You have a point.”

Barret stared. “A point about a dead princess?”

“No! If -- look. This news covered up the explosion, you said? So clearly they want to make sure like they’ve got things under control.”

“Yeah.”

“What if,” Tifa said, pacing, “we went all in. What if we really fucked them over, enough that Wutai decides not to bring her here in the first place.”

Barret shook his head. “Wouldn’t it start another war?”

“Maybe,” she said, “maybe not. Pissing the Wutai Alliance off could mean they postpone her coming here, or even the wedding, maybe. The talking heads say it’s rushed, since they’re doing it right when she reaches majority.”

“We gotta plan this carefully, Boss,” Barret said, “but I’m thinkin’ you’re right.”

“Boy, I hate when you say that,” Tifa smiled, though she didn’t feel it. “I like it when we argue. It keeps me on my toes.”

“Always a meetin’ of the minds,” Barret said, returning her uncertain smile. “Hey, let me close up before dinner. I can say the water’s down or somethin’, so we won’t be open. I’ll get Marlene’s schooling done early, we can have a meeting after that. Sound good, Boss?”

“Yeah, sounds great, BW. Thanks.”

Tifa watched Barret shoo the last remaining lunch patrons out with a few gruff words, then the secure latch of the door. She heard his voice change completely when he called for Marlene and her coloring paper: “Let’s make a sign, you can show me all the letters you’ve learned.” She saw Marlene rush past the bar to grab at Barret’s metal hand, laughing and excited. Barret’s shoulders unclenched, calming down.

Tifa was not calm. There was too much to do that night. She had to rally their ragged handful of troops, the three of them still in shock from their work the night before. To find a safe place for Marlene in the meantime. To see if Cloud would take up the mission without pay, when she got back from her own weekly routine.

She watched Barret and Marlene and it pushed those worries aside, bringing to mind her father, how he’d work his hardest to keep her cheerful on the worst of days, the lectures about running off into the mountains with her little ‘boyfriends’, Mitya and Claude. Tifa fought to remember his smile, but it could not replace the last time she saw her father’s face, slack with surprise and death, bloodless skin and open eyes already clouding.

Barret was right. If they waited to hit the next Reactor as planned, they would be dead before they could regroup. They might not even have a chance now, with Shinra bulking up security for the princess’ arrival. But there was a way to minimize bloodshed, one that wouldn’t leave Marlene an orphan like Tifa had been, weeping over the lifeless body of the only father she’d ever known.

There was only one way to get this done, quickly and efficiently, without anyone else implicated in the mess: Tifa would have to go alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "C'mon, BW. Let's mosey."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings: None.**
> 
> Author’s Note: As I’ve stated before, I’m doing a lot of work on beefing up the religious aspects of FFVII, using the framework from both this Final Fantasy and others in the series, most especially FFVI and what I know of FFXIV. However, I’d like make a point that these are fictional religions. None are meant to be exact ciphers for anything in our world, and any similarities are not intended.
> 
> With that aside, I’ve kept the names of the summons the same as in the games, even though they famously derive from real-world religions with often varying depictions from their namesakes.
> 
>  
> 
> **Warnings: None.**

No one in the Slums knew Sierra Gast.

Cloud had spent months searching each Sector for Gast, when she’d been well enough to move on her own. She’d taken a train once or twice up to Copper Rim to ask around, too, while her old ID still worked. Some said the name sounded familiar, but they couldn't recall why. Others shuttered up and asked her leave, which meant to Cloud that this Sierra existed, at least, and was probably dangerous. Which made Cloud more apprehensive as to why she was herself so eager to find her.

The name was one of the only things she _did_ remember about the last few years. Both Barret and Tifa repeated it to her after she’d recovered: _You kept saying you had to see Sierra in the Slums. Sierra Gast. She’d fix you up._ It was the only part of searching her mind that didn't bring on a migraine and a blackout, so Cloud grasped it as the first real thread to unravel whatever had happened to her before Midgar.

Today she'd taken a risk to head towards the Sector Eight underground, just below Copper Rim, where she'd taken a flying leap onto the back of a train to escape Shinra soldiers. She chose to hug the edge of where Seven and Eight met, just in case someone recognized her. 

Cloud had forgotten it was Saint Celestin’s day, when most people would be at church until well into the afternoon; she’d usually done her fact-finding on Rhine’s or Ixchel’s days, when there were more people in the streets.

Most shops and stalls were open today even so, younger family members manning their stations as their guardians attended services. Those in the lower Rims did not have the luxury of staying closed on any of the holy days, even a richer area like Sector Eight. In fact, Cloud had helped Tifa prep for the inevitable after-service rush at 7th Heaven that morning, sneaking a few floury biscuits for herself for later.

The biscuits were long gone now, and with her fruitless search over, Cloud was hungry again. 7th Heaven was at least thirty minutes on foot, so she stopped at a stall to buy a pasty and get a refill of clean water for her canteen. She made her way to the concrete divider between Sectors, sat down on a bench, and enjoyed her meal in the rare, sleepy lull in Midgar’s usual bustle.

Eventually, Cloud heard the echo of an old Advent hymn, warbling from behind the wooden walls of an old chapel. Cloud couldn’t hear the words, but knew the tune, almost drowned out by the brassy electric keyboard accompaniment. She mouthed what she could recall of the song, remembered a time when the Advent’s music and scripture brought her comfort. Now, it only made her long for home, a place she could not return to. Not just because of who she was now, or anything she’d done since she left: Nibelheim had burned to the ground three years ago, and nothing remained.

Her meal finished, Cloud found herself idling outside the chapel after the service wrapped. People poured from the creaking doors, ignoring her, too busy chattering about the mundanities of their lives. There were a mentions of the Shinra-Kisaragi wedding and the princess’s early arrival to Midgar, all a much more exciting scandal than the ugliness from the “catastrophic failure” of Reactor One’s cooling core. 

She didn't hear a single mention of AVALANCHE. She had expected as much: the rebel group had only been on the initial reports of Reactor One’s destruction. By morning, any mention of their involvement had vanished: It’d been ruled nothing more than a case of neglect and infrastructure error. _It was in one of the poorest parts of Midgar_ , Cloud heard a parishioners say, as if they were not themselves living in poverty. _It couldn’t be helped._

Tifa and Barret had more work to do before the Shinra media spin machine could be thwarted, for AVALANCHE to be more than a few carefully placed posters and graffiti calling citizens to arms. Cloud wasn't sure if she wanted to be part of that work, to be involved further than she had been already. She had a stranger to search for, after all, a past to recover from whatever the Mako had done to her brain. She was still sickly: a liability, Barret had said, and it was true. If she wasn’t careful, Cloud would drag AVALANCHE down, SOLDIER or not.

It came down to Tifa, owing her more than a vagrant’s commitment. Cloud knew abandoning her childhood friend to the dangerous unknown would gnaw at her for the rest of her life, considering everything else that'd already passed between them. 

She had more worries than she’d woken up with, and was desperate for guidance. Standing outside the empty chapel, staring at the open door, she decided to cast her coins in with a Saint to seek favor -- and answers. 

Cloud chewed on the side of her mouth, rolling a few gil in her palm. Though it was Celestin’s day, she’d be a bad choice: she was a practical Saint. One dedicated their diligence _to_ her, rather than expecting work _from_ her. Saint Rhine would be the best choice for a timely answer out of the Seven. She was Junon’s lively messenger, swift astride her horned horse, and Cloud had change to spare for a decent tribute. 

Or, Cloud mused, she could toss the gil to Bahamut the Devil, whose favor was fickle but powerful. The Reunion had restored the Cetran reverence to the Warring Triad, where before they'd shared equal ground with the Saints and Summons of the Advent. This renaissance of Cetran religion included putting the Devil against the Reunion's version of the Goddess. Vice-ridden but clever, Bahamut had always lead people to wickedness and folly, an adversary to the Goddess’s purity and righteousness. Following Her law was how one became free of Bahamut’s lichenous grasp. When one thanked the Devil, they were giving him due for letting their trouble pass. 

Bahamut’s boons also came with caveats: he could foretell your future, at the cost of knowing it was immutable once it passed his lips. He brought disorder to your life before he’d deliver your reward. Cloud, with a myriad of tough decisions ahead of her, was willing to gamble. Gil still hot in her hand, Cloud made the trek back to 7th Heaven. 

She knew of a collection of beggars holed up in the alcove beneath the cracked, big-screen television. Once or twice, Cloud had stopped by for a quick prayer or a token in lieu of going to major holiday services, still spiritual and superstitious enough to feel peace when she did so.

The concrete cave smelled strongly of temple incense failing to disguise the smell of animal shit, though the vent shaft above took the worst of it away. A few stray cats wandered between Cloud's feet as she walked in, nearly tripping her as they went about hissing at dogs and batting at chickens. She suspected the animals were probably fed better than the beggars, whose patchwork tents lined the walls.

Nine rickety stalls were arrayed in a semi-circle, one for each of the Seven Saints, the Goddess, and the Devil. Jenova’s was the easiest to spot -- her stall was the nicest, her laity better dressed than most people in the Slums could ever afford. They were there, most likely, to keep an eye on the others, to make sure they didn’t stray too far from the Reunion’s reformed path.

The Devil’s stall was attended by one man. He had gold teeth and wore homely rags, his skin and face rough and red. It was not like the warm tan of Tifa’s skin, but a shade that Cloud’s would be, if she’d spent years in the sun, above Midgar’s Plate.

“Hello, young lady,” the man said, showing off his expensive teeth.

"Hello, Aldar, sir," Cloud said, bowing lightly at the waist and making the sign of the saints over her brow. "I'm here to pay tribute to Bahamut."

"Are you, now?" The aldar whistled, chuckling and scrubbing his whiskered chin. "Well, how much are you willing to pay?"

"Two hundred gil," Cloud said.

The aldar didn't even blink at the amount, which would have fed the entire beggar’s group for a month, twice over. Trading with Bahamut was not meant to be cheap.

"Your prayer?" the aldar said, yawning and a little disinterested, which was proper for a Devil’s devotee. 

"I need to meet someone," Cloud began, counting out her gil for the offering. "I only got her name. No one seems to know where she is. If they know of her, they don't like her. But she exists, an' I was told to meet with her. So I don't care how, I just want to move on. I got things to do." And then, fumbling, she added: "I'd also like to be alive when I get this answer, please."

The aldar laughed, high and nasal. "Ha-ha! Well you know your way around a Devil’s gift, don't you? I'll take your money, little lady."

“Thank you kindly,” Cloud said, and watched the man sweep the gil into a patina-striped copper bowl. He began a prayer, something in rhyming Cetran, and wiped a triangle of red oil on the back of Cloud's hand. Halfway through the prayer, his grip on Cloud’s hand tightened. When she drew back from the aldar’s gnarled hands, there was something in her palm. When Cloud saw what it was, she felt a chill grip her. She grasped the item to her chest, heart pounding.

"Why would you --"

"Don't ask, you know why," the aldar said, now burning with intent. "Keep that on you. Don't let anyone see it. But I know you, girl, and so does the Devil. We know what your eyes say. You need _his_ protection. Don't forget where you come from."

Then he went back to his prayer, as if nothing was wrong. When he was through, he turned away as if Cloud wasn’t there, muttering under his breath about the recent cost of filtered water.

The item he'd given her was no more than an uneven chunk of jet, carved roughly in the shape of a wolf's head, yet it was more dangerous to her than any boon of the Devil could be. It was a token of Fenrir the Traitor.

The endless feud between the Devil and Goddess was for the purpose of allegory. Through them, men could understand why they were wicked, and how they could deliver themselves from sin. The Fiend was the completion of the Triad and not part of their eternal game. He was true evil, enmity incarnate.

In Reunion, he had taken the shape of the Fenrir. Once Saint Tyr’s beloved companion, Fenrir personified all that was dark and cruel. When the the Reunion came, Fenrir would eclipse the sun with his bulk and drag the moon down from the sky, forcing the Advent’s Children to rise up and slay him.

The Wolf’s reputation had not been so less than a hundred years ago. He’d been part of the Advent, raised high as the Summon to a Saint. And it was _certainly_ different where Cloud was from. Both Fenrir and Tyr were said to have come from the twisted slate mountains in Nibel. With Tyr, he’d symbolized the sacred strife, the righteous suffering all people endured. By now, though, the old Advent scripture had been set aside, or destroyed altogether in hopes that Fenrir’s true deeds were lost to time. 

Cloud’s hands trembled as she smoothed her thumb over the icon. There was a thrum between her ears, throbbing and overwhelming. She thought she’d pass our amidst the beggars for a moment, but managed to stay upright, stumbling towards the exit. It wasn’t far from the bar. If she focused, she could make it before she collapsed --

"Strife! Hey!”

It was Barret, running up the road to meet her. Fumbling, Cloud shoved the Fenrir icon into her coin purse. Once she did, the throbbing stopped.

“Barret,” she said. “What’s got you?”

“Tifa with you?” Barret asked, before the dust cleared behind him. He put his human hand on Cloud’s shoulder, peering around her as if Tifa could hide behind Cloud’s slim frame.

Cloud side-stepped him, frowning. “She ain’t, sorry. Thought she was back at the bar.”

"She ain’t there. Maybe she called your cell?" Barret’s metal fingers clicked with anxiety. 

Cloud checked her flip-phone, shaking her head. “No missed calls, no messages.”

Barret made a small noise in the back of his throat, between despair and rage. " _Fuck!_ It musta been her!"

"Hey, quiet,” Cloud said, hands raised. “I’m good an’ lost here. What’s this ‘bout Tifa? Tell me.”

"Sorry,” Barret put both his hands on his scalp. “Shit. Sorry.”

"Just take a deep breath,” Cloud said. Barret needed patience right now. It wouldn’t be fair to snap at him.

“Went down to the basement to get some work done,” Barret said. “All this Mizukami business was movin’ things up. Found most of our stuff was sabotaged. Our kits, the computers. If it ain’t fucked up, it’s just gone.”

“What’s this got to do with Tifa?” Cloud said, but the picture was already forming in her head. One she should’ve anticipated all along.

“She’s gone to do it on her own,” Barret said.

“Do what?”

“Reactor Five.”

“ _Shit._ ” 

They took off for the bar. They had to take the side door, the front closed up for the day. Which was for the best, considering its owner decided to run off and handle an intricate rebel operation on her own.

Cloud’s first stop wasn’t the basement, but the bedroom she shared with Tifa. She was relieved to find her clean SOLDIER uniform in the closet, the Buster Sword still tucked carefully under Tifa’s bed. Cloud didn’t waste much time changing. She pulled off her tunic, left her leggings on, and worked her way into the rest of her First Class uniform, boots and belts and all. When she’d finished, she dug into her coin purse for the Wolf icon, and shoved it into her underwire, to keep it close. There was none of the pulsing ache in her head like before.

“I know she’s your old friend, but she’s family to me now, too,” Barret said, as Cloud joined him. “She helped me so much with Marlene when we first got to this god-damn place, and she’s one of the kindest folks I know, even after all she’s been through. I can’t let her throw her life away like this, Strife, more ‘n you can.”

"You're a good man, Barret Wallace," Cloud said, reaching out to squeeze his human hand. "Wherever she is now, I know your mama would be proud of you.”

“Saints, sure hope so.” Barret's smile was lopsided, sad. He looked every inch a teenager now, a kid having to grow up too quickly in the wasteland that had become Corel. It felt familiar and painful, to see it from the other side. 

“Don’t you worry,” Cloud said. “We’re gonna get her back. Then we’re gonna lecture the hell out of her, you get me?”

“Yeah, I get you,” Barret said. He’d kitted up well as he could, and he’d salvaged a shotgun and a sidearm from their armory. By the looks of his bandoleer, he was low on ammo for both.

“Think I need the gun attachment?” he asked, nodding to his metal arm, self-conscious.

"No," Cloud said, firm. “It hurts you, don’t it? We need you on your game, an’ you keepin’ your head clear is our best defense we got right now.”

"A'ight," Barret said. Cloud's confidence in him seemed to have put him back on keel. “Marlene’s at a friend’s, so I’m ready. See you outside by the bike.”

Left alone in the bar, Cloud relished the moment of relative silence. She twisted her sword from its sheath, holding it so that the flat hilt rested right over her forehead, where one made the symbol of the Saints. She took a breath, felt the weight of it comfort her, and thanked the Devil for his help. 

Bahamut had answered her right away, loud and clear: Cloud was meant to go all in with Tifa’s cause. The hunt for Sierra Gast would have to wait.

"Hey, Strife," Barret called out from the street. "We got ten minutes to catch our train, ain’t your spikey-headed ass ready yet?"

You ready to go, little lady? It's going to be tough from here on out.

"Damn right, I'm ready,” she said, taking a showy leap off the porch to land beside Barret, twirling her sword back in place as she stood. "C'mon, BW. Let's mosey."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It must be the Devil’s fortune we're meeting again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings: Transphobia (deadnaming & misgendering). **
> 
> Author’s Note: I’m sure it comes at NO surprise, but I'm a huge geek and I can’t stop the subtle references to other legacy Playstation games! ;) One of the references is obvious, I think, but the other one is very subtle -- see if you can catch it, I’d be so delighted! 
> 
> Thank you as always for indulging my indulgence in this little fic. :)
> 
> OH, also, I use "Aeris" because I'm used to it! I know it's properly Aerith now. ;)

It was surprisingly easy to get into the reactor without a proper ID. Tifa was a straightforward kind of woman, so saying she used her “wiles” to get access was a bit of a stretch. All it’d taken was to look pretty, and act a little silly, asking around the guard station about getting escort up to see her boyfriend, a Director John Clemens. She had his name from an old Turks dossier, and one cheeky little wave at a security camera was enough to get Clemens to come down, oggle at her low-cut shirt, pretend he had any idea who she was, and let her in without going through usual protocol.

He apparently thought she was an escort herself, and not the armed kind -- the dossier had said he enjoyed Wutai women to the point of fetish, which is why she’d chosen Clemens in particular. He stammered that he wasn’t really ready to leave work just yet, that there was so much to do, with all the news and the disaster at the other Reactor.

“But when we do,” Clemens said, trying and mostly failing to look up at Tifa’s face, “I can take you up to Platinum. I have access to a few places there. It’ll be great.”

Tifa had smiled and thought how nice it would be to club him over the head sooner than later, and giggled a throwaway phrase in Northern Wutan that made him stumble over any other words he might have found.

He took her on a brief, cursory tour, though Tifa already knew the layout of Sector 5 Reactor was the same as Sector 1. It was in much better shape, though, which had its downsides. The structural collapse of the Reactor would be harder to cause with the pithy amount of plastic she had on her. Tifa had to play it by ear, but with Clemens around her pinky finger it would be easy to suss out a decent spot.

He took her to the control room, intent to get back to his work; she sat across from him, tucking her knees together coyly and looking around, pretending to be fascinated.

“It’s neat, isn’t it,” Clemens said; Tifa saw a brief sheen of sweat on his forehead and tried to suppress a shudder of revulsion.

“What’s this do?” she asked, spinning a finger through a projected image of the Reactor.

“Oh, that’s, uh, that’s the --” Clemens waved his hands, trying to get her to move away from it. “It just shows where all the vents are, and stuff. We’re supposed to keep an eye on it after what happened in Sector 1 --”

“You mean,” Tifa said, hand to her chest, “the explosion? Why, were the vents blocked up or something?”

“No, some -- some big rats got in,” Clemens said, huffing. “Messed up the whole thing.”

Did we now? Tifa almost said, relishing the unease in the director’s body language. He knew the truth, no matter what the news was spinning this morning.

“Hey!”

A spindly man at the door startled the two of them. From the looks of his white coat, wild hair, dark circles, and busted clipboard, he was probably the real reason the Sector 5 reactor was running efficiently all, considering Clemens’s obvious incompetence.

“You can’t keep bringing people in here, man!” the scientist said, waving his hand at Tifa. “Keep that at home! You know what the higher-ups would do if he found out you kept hauling women around --”

“She’s a gift, Emmerich,” Clemens said, haughtily. “Clearly, some higher-up likes what I’m doing lately --”

“My ass she’s a “gift”,” Emmerich said, exhausted. He looked Tifa over with a skeptical eye, his glasses falling down his face. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave.”

“Aww,” Tifa said, sulking as she stood from the chair. 

Emmerich shoved his glasses up his nose, snuffling and glaring at Clemens as he guided her out. “I’ll direct you to the elevator,” he said. 

When they were out of earshot of Clemens, Emmerich leaned over, shoved some gil in her hand and said, “Look, whoever sent you, have them get their money back. Clemens isn’t worth the cash, trust me.”

Tifa cracked a real smile. Not everyone who worked in Shinra was an awful person. In truth, most of them weren’t. They were citizens of Midgar all the same, lucky enough to get a job that allowed them more than a pittance most other people received. She wondered if Emmerich was from a family below the Plate, showing her as much concern as he did about a prostitute. People from that kind of background generally wanted to give a hand up, if they could afford it.

“Thanks so much for looking out for me, Doctor,” she said, shyly toeing the ground with her boot. Emmerich blushed, for the first time a little flummoxed.

“Just -- don’t let the guards stop you on the way out,” Emmerich said. “They’re just as nasty as Clemens, but they have more pull.”

“Oh, okay,” Tifa said. Not like she planned on anything less than stopping the elevator and climbing out the security hatch into one of the “rat” ducts. She’d disabled Clemens’s security measures while in the control room, after all. Among other things.

“Well, um, I should go,” Emmerich said, still awkwardly shaking her hand, the money crinkling. “It was, uh, nice meeting you.”

“You too -- hey, Doctor Emmerich, for your good deed?” Tifa squeezed the man’s hand before he drew away, leaving the gil in his palm. “You should treat yourself. The new noodle place downtown is really authentic, go try it.”

Emmerich looked at her warily, then stuffed the money back in his coat pocket. “All right,” he said, and she watched him hurry towards the elevator again. With relief, she saw him choose “down”, towards the street level. It’d be a shame if he got caught up in what was about to happen, even if he wouldn’t have a job to return to when he finished his ramen.

Tifa took the next elevator up and made sure to stop on a maintenance floor, where most people would be glued to their stations. It was a simple job of wiggling through the vents to get to her destination and circumvent the higher security nearer the core.

Once out of the vent, she kept her eyes on the prize: the main reactor itself. There wasn’t much plastic left after she’d used some earlier, and she couldn’t quite reach the valve from the rafters as she avoided the guards below. She attached the bomb to one of the major cooling pipes, set it for an hour, and slipped away.

When dropped into the maintenance elevator lobby again, she wasn’t alone. Quickly, she adjusted her hair and clothes and prayed the guards hadn’t seen her emerge from the vent.

“Ma’am,” a deep, muffled voice said, “you’re on the wrong floor.”

A lighter voice chimed in: “You need any help?”

“Oh, yeah!” Tifa said, back to bright and bubbly. “I must’ve gotten turned around, I totally need help getting to --”

When she saw who her company was, she gawked. Even with their mouths covered, she should’ve recognized the accents. It was Cloud and Barret, now shuffling out of battered Shinra hazmat suits. Barret looked a little ashen with anxiety and Cloud’s hair was stuck out in every direction, a harmless dandilion instead of a trained soldier.

Tifa grimaced. “Well, I didn’t expect company,” she said.

“You shouldn’t’ve left like that, Boss,” Barret said. Not accusatory, which was almost worse than if he came at her with guns blazing. “You know how much we depend on you.”

“I would’ve come back,” Tifa said.

“Tiff,” Cloud said, sounding tired. “C’mon. AVALANCHE needs you bad.”

“They have you, don’t they, Cloud?” Tifa said, abruptly. “She’ll do in a pinch, right Barret?”

Barret scowled. “Later, let’s just get out of here.”

“And we got a lot to talk about,” Cloud grumbled, holding the plastic hazmat suit out to Tifa.

“Whatever else you want to say to me,” Tifa said, prickly, “it can wait.”

“Oh, I’m sure it can, young lady. And it will.”

Behind the sterile, quiet pillars of the maintence floor lobby came a new voice, booming and snide in equal measure. Footsteps sounded, deliberately slow, as if drawing out the anticipation.

This voice belonged to the man who intoned his daily prayers to the Goddess before every morning broadcast, who asserted himself constantly as Her voice on earth, the head of the Reunion church. It was Barbarossa Shinra.

-

For being the most powerful man in the world, President Shinra was vulnerable. He had no guard, no weapon on him as he approached Cloud and her friends. He carried only a simple walking stick, capped in gold, which he tapped idly against the ground.

“Well, color me surprised,” Cloud said under her breath. “Looks like we got some real royal company, don’t we?”

“Good afternoon indeed,” Shinra said, swiping a hand around the bland concrete room as if it were a gold-limned palace hall. “What brings the lot of you to my humble little corner of Midgar?”

“Humble my ass,” Cloud said. 

“I thought you’d be a bit more respectable than the rest of the lot, young man,” Shinra said, his native, posh Aljunoor accent grating. “You’re the one who claims to be an ex-SOLDIER, correct? Funny how we’ve never met before.”

Cloud’s ears burned. After being recognized as a woman for so long, it made her queasy to hear “young man” from anyone that knew better. Most folks thought she was an exception to the unspoken rule that women couldn’t be SOLDIERS; of course, President Shinra would know the truth.

“I wondered who you were,” the president went on, “We didn’t have anyone in the SOLDIER records like you, after all, even as a Third.”

Cloud’s head throbbed, briefly, but she stood her ground. “Your intel’s just out of date. Figure the good General must not want to waste your precious time.”

“I looked into the army’s specialist corps next,” Shinra said, ignoring her slight on Heidegger. “And what did I find but a young, fresh-faced boy from Nibelheim that matched your description? A boy that’d gone MIA nearly three years ago, even?”

There was the sharp pang of confusion, now, a vague memory-smell of rot and antiseptic in equal measure, of breathing substrate for air, none of it quite making sense. _I’m in SOLDIER, sure enough. This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about --_

“Cloud, don’t listen to him,” Tifa said, seeing Cloud tense up. Her tone carried a warning, a plea for her to disengage.

“I heard you’d appeared out of nowhere, moved into the Slums. I thought you might come back to us, and we would’ve welcomed you with open arms,” Shinra said, with a great sigh, “until you decided to traipse around with these blasphemers instead.”

“Blasphemers,” Barret repeated, grinding his teeth.

“Think a girl like me can decide who she likes to pack with,” Cloud snapped, cordite a new sense-memory, rain and blood and despair on her tongue. She didn’t quite understand it, but her next words came to her easily: “‘Specially when your precious army abandoned me in the first place.”

“Is that so, Specialist Strauss?”

Cloud went cold at her title, her former name. She’d gone by Strauss in SOLDIER. Of course she had, it was just her family’s name. But she knew there was another name on the tip of the President’s tongue like a poison, one Cloud hadn’t heard in ages at this point, save the moment she corrected Tifa when she’d been well enough to manage words. It had been the name her father had given her before he’d died in the mines, the one her mother had called “him” on her deathbed. With them gone, she’d left it behind, along with the uncertain boy she’d been raised.

“It sure is so, sir,” Cloud said, trying steel herself against Shinra’s attempt at unsettling her. “Look at the reports yourself, if they made it to the reports at’tal.”

“Even though you were weak in body, your mind could’ve made you great, Strauss,” Shinra said, jabbing his walking cane at Tifa, at Barret. “You would’ve made SOLDIER honestly, that’s what I think. And our company could use a good SOLDIER, now, having lost so many! But instead, you’ve traded glory and Goddess to take up a sinner’s life, and lost your place in the Promised Land.”

“Have I,” Cloud asked, lip curling. “I thought me takin’ up arms for you an’ your Mama woulda been enough to get into your precious Promised Land no matter what.”

Shinra went white with zealous rage. “How dare you speak about Her like that, you little shit --”

“ _Stop it_ , Cloud,” Tifa said, pleading. “We need to go. _Now._ ”

“She’s right,” Barret said, grabbing Cloud’s arm with no intention of letting her go.

“Ready to leave so soon?” Shinra said, voice a little shrill from his outburst, his blue eyes following their retreat. “Don’t worry, we’ve taken care of all your pitiful attempts at sabotage in the reactor.”

Cloud saw a manic glimmer in Tifa’s eyes as she turned to look over her shoulder, a moment of a small and secret triumph.

“Not all of it,” she said, and the control room above them exploded.

The ceiling began to crumble above them. Shinra howled in rage, retreating towards the hallway behind him. A moment later he was screaming orders into a radio, but if he was saying anything worth hearing, Cloud couldn’t make it out in the noise. Barret drug her down the stairs towards the reactor floor again. With all the security heading to the control floor, it was the last place anyone would look for them. They could wait it in the vents, then make their way down to the abandoned train tunnels. That was risky, but the best chance they had.

The three of them made it halfway across the bridge before it began to shudder beneath their feet. Cloud tripped as the bridge began to break into sections beneath her, puzzle pieces pulled apart. Cloud grasped the rail of the failing bridge, waiting for the drop. She saw Tifa and Barret had made it safely across to the other side, and prayed to the Saints that they’d make it out of there.

Tifa screamed, reaching for her; Barret pulled her back just as Cloud’s section of the bridge broke away. Cloud closed her eyes as she plummeted to the void, her hand where the token of Fenrir burned into her skin, accepting the end.

-

_Reports have surfaced that the Sephiroth, Shinra’s most renowned SOLDIER First Class and one of Midgar’s bright stars, has been killed in action while overseas in the Nibel-Corel region of Sol. Coming right on the heels of the deaths of Sephiroth’s other First Class compatriots, Genesis and Penance, this is yet another tragedy not only for the company, but the world itself. Other members of Shinra’s elite army branch are missing as well, including SOLIDER First Class --_

“I won't leave you hanging like that.”

Just like a kid.

“We’re friends, right?”

_As the latest member of the SOLDIER First Class, have you picked a name, like Sephiroth or Genesis?_

So how does it feel? It's your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right?

_Well I was thinking of a few things, but I’m not exactly the best at this kind of stuff. I’m a meat-and-potatoes guy, right?_

I wouldn't know because I don't have a hometown.

_But I was thinking… Penance is really religious, right? And I take my cues from him. So I think -- Strife. What do you think? I think it has a nice ring to it. It means something to me._

I always knew I was different, ever since I was small.

_I’d like to be called Strife, when I make First._

But not like this. Not like this.

_Hey, how are you doing?_

What do I have to be sad about?

“What do you want to do with him?”

_Hey. Are you in there? Are you dead? You’re breathing._

Leave me alone.

“Forget it. Just leave him.”

_Can you hear me? Don’t leave me hanging here. Hey!_

-

“Hey! Hello--?”

The voices were gone, save one, familiar in both tone and phrase. Cloud opened her eyes and saw the flower peddler from Sector Eight leaning over her.

"Well praise the Saints and thank the Devil, you’re really alive!” the woman said, flopping her arms at her sides. “I thought I’d have a vegetable in my flower garden.”

“Not sure you don’t,” Cloud muttered, shaking her aching skull. She frowned as the woman knelt down beside her, spreading her hands out as if to grope her. “Hey --!”

“ _Shhushhussshh_ , hay is for horses,” the peddler said, overwrought and comical, as if the woman hadn’t been shouting the word at her moments ago. “Just don’t move so much, you’re still a little rattled. Hit your head maybe just a _couple_ times the way down, I think. Oh, and the rest of you.”

“Sure enough,” Cloud said. Her Mako treatments were the only reason she was alive, that was for sure. It didn't prevent what had to be a thousand hairline fractures and bruises on her aching body, but the peddler was already taking care of that. There was a wave of healing that emanated from the woman’s hands, tingling, warm at first, then icy like scattered snow. Cloud wasn’t too addled not to notice the peddler had no Materia on her at all.

“Sooo, what do I call the strange woman that fell through a church roof and murdered half my flowers?” the peddler asked, as casual as if commenting on the weather.

"Cloud Strife,” Cloud murmured, flexing her fingers experimentally, meeting the woman’s eyes. For a second, she thought they were slit, like a fox’s, but that was probably a trick of the light.

"Well, _howdy_ , Cloud,” the woman said, shaking Cloud’s hand like they’d struck a business deal. “I’m Aeris, Aeris Gainsborough. It must be the Devil’s fortune we're meeting again.”

 _You’re not kidding about the Devil_ , Cloud thought, and laid back to stare at the hole she’d made in the ceiling, wondering if Bahamut was done with granting her request, or if he'd just begun.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> O Sophia, lay rest thy beasts of burden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **PLEASE NOTE: CHAPTERS 1-5 HAVE BEEN REMIXED AND REVISED FOR CONTINUITY, WITH NEW SCENES ADDED!** Please check them out if you've read before April 27, 2017 -- you can start your re-read [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10555776/chapters/23316788)!!! I'm really excited about the changes, and I hope you'll be, too. 
> 
> THE TURKS ARE HERE!!! I've been waiting for it as much as you have! Mountain imagery courtesy my own Southern upbringing. Thanks to Shoi for letting me expand on her Reno.
> 
> The hymn in this chapter is based on the LOVELESS poem from Crisis Core. :)
> 
> **Content Warnings: None.**

Dmitry Rudenko did not fit easily into most standard vehicles. Not _comfortably_ , anyway. It was why he preferred motorcycles, where all his 195-plus-centimeters could stretch out without trouble. The little tin cans his work usually assigned him were murder on his joints and neck.

Today, he'd been given a van. It was slow, and its bulk and weight threatened to unbalance and topple off the pin-sharp curves down the Steel-Copper Access Ramp, but at least his legs weren't cramped. Wrangling the van around without hurtling off the ramp brought him to mind of his father's clanking, gas-guzzling truck and the dizzy gravity of pin-turn mountain roads. His father had been a tall, strong-shouldered man, like Rude had grown to be, and he'd disparaged the "daintier" cars, unsuited towards steep gravel roads and the mountain-sized folk they carried.

Yet it was trucks like theirs being driven on smooth urban concrete that _really_ got the old man going: _They got them flatbeds like us in them big cities_ , Rude’s dad would say, _but they don't got any rust on 'em carriages, no wear 'n tear, just chrome 'n shine. Jus' like to pretend they mountain folk, when they never work'd’hard day in their lives._ Rude couldn't quite remember his father's face, but he could recall the smells of chewing tobacco and engine oil easily enough, canned lemonade and toasted pumpkin seeds, the fresh-cut hay they were bringing down to sell to the valley cattle farmers.

There wasn't anything fresh about Copper Rim, though. On a good day it smelled like the rusty water that leaked from Steel Rim's heavy pipes. Most days, it was perfumed with chemical run-off with a hint of strewn garbage at its base. It was not a good day, and Rude covered his mouth with his glove to get used to the stink.

"The finest _eau de toilet_ in all three levels of Midgar," Reno said as he hopped out of the Turks’ van, inhaling deep like he'd just opened the shutters to a Platinum Rim morning, and managing, somehow, not to gag on his own joke.

"There's four," said a soft voice.

It was the new girl, Elena Frisk. She stuck yellow head popped out of the truck, and she made a face as soon as the smell hit her, covering her mouth and nose with her suit sleeve.

Reno rolled his head back towards the rookie, like he was stretching, his flat red fringe falling into his eyes. "Four what?"

"Four levels," Frisk replied. "You're forgetting the Iron Rim, right below us."

"No one fucking calls the Slums that, Frisk," Reno said, rubbing his jaw with a dangerous kind of thoughtfulness. Rude shifted as he pocketed the van keys, waiting for his partner to bait Frisk further, watching the slight slope of the slim man's shoulders as he decided against it.

Frisk hid her indignant flush by checking her gun holster. Rude felt bad for her. Reno was usually relaxed to the point of sedation half the time, but he’d been in a shitty mood for months now. It’d gotten worse in the past few days, and he’d been taking it out on Frisk non-stop.

“Whatever, kids, _I’m_ the one _slumming_ it today,” Reno said, eyeing a text on his phone, then snapping it shut. “You two are gonna do your rounds, check on our pint-sized contacts, and then head back to Sterling to help Tseng find a place to stash the princess.”

“You’re not coming?” Rude asked, adjusting his gloves, making sure the materia in his brass knuckles was secure. “You know the Copper snipes don’t like me half as much as you.”

“You don’t give them cigarettes,” Reno said, twirling his cattle prod idly.

“They’re just _children_ ,” Frisk said, shocked. Reno stopped his prod halfway through a swing, right near her face, and she shut up quickly.

“I’m going to meet my usual in Sector Six,” Reno continued. “I should’ve met some grunts at the train station like... an hour ago? Mayyybe two?”

Rude’s brow lifted in surprise, his sunglasses slipping down his nose. “She won’t be expecting you. It’s not Tsai’s Day, it’s --”

“I _know_ ,” Reno said, a dip in his voice that spoke of the danger caged beneath his fair skin, “what fucking _day_ it is, Rudenko.”

“Woah, gotcha,” Rude said, holding up both his hands in surrender. Reno being pissy at a newcomer was one thing, but Rude could count the number of times the older man had snapped at him on one hand.

“I’m just _focused_ ,” Reno said, posture loosening, though his cobalt eyes were still a wide, wild. “Look, just take the rookie, get what you need, then head back up the Plate to find a place to stash the princess. I’ll take the train back after I’m finished.”

“Strange that Tseng would assign our superior officer to another mission, when ours is of such importance,” Frisk said, arms folded.

“Well, he’s kinda a strange guy,” Reno said. The hairs raised on the back of Rude’s neck at his tone.

“Is he _really_ sending you to Sector Six, or are you going to do some of your famous tomcatting in the clubs down there?”

There was one line you did not cross with Reno, and Frisk had just barreled past it to the finish line.

Reno smiled at Frisk, a gentle look on his face. “Shut your fucking mouth,” he said, with soft spoken venom, “and never, ever fucking talk to me like that again.”

Frisk’s nostrils flared, and she backed up against the van, finally realizing she’d done something wrong. Rude shoved his sunglasses up his nose and stood between them.

“Just get going, you know those Thirds will whine if you don’t get there,” he told Reno. “I’ll message you when we’re on the way up, okay? Do the same.”

“Ohhkay,” Reno said, still dangerously languid. He gave Frisk one last grin, then dragged his prod on the asphalt of the parking garage, and began to sing. It was a hymn far older than any in the Reunion, older than the Advent, though still sung within the church’s walls:

> _O healer of worlds, thy love everlasting_  
>  _In thy infinite joy we are reborn_  
>  _O Sophia, reveal thy beasts of burden._

“What’s wrong with him?” Frisk breathed, when the older man was out of sight. “He is -- rather strange.”

Rude frowned at Frisk. “He’s not used to people questioning him. You were out of line, Frisk, you know that?”

> _O hero of the dawn, thou art our salvation_  
>  _Through thy gifts we are reborn_  
>  _O Sophia, call forth thy beasts of burden._

Frisk hunched.“Yes, I --” She looked at her feet. “I am -- very sorry, sir. I can apologize to Reno later --”

> _O promise us naught, and leave the morrow barren_  
>  _With wings of white we fly from worldly scorn_  
>  _O Sophia, let rise thy beasts of burden._

“There’s no need to,” Rude sighed. “It won’t do any good.”

“Yes, sir,” Frisk murmured.

Reno’s voice carried still, brassy but sweet, distant as a bird in flight:

> _O joy over sorrow, our end is nigh_  
>  _Let nothing forstall thy return_  
>  _O Sophia, we are thy beasts of burden._

Pinpricks of memory raised gooseflesh on Rude’s arms. Though much of his faith had flown long ago, enough of it lingered for the lyrics to twist his heart. The elevators shut in front of him and Frisk, cutting off the last lines of Reno’s song. Rude finished it softly, caught up in his memory of mountain air, the Mako stench, tobacco and sunflower seeds and smoke billowing from the chapel door:

> _O Goddess, from the sky thee descend_  
>  _To raise us up at world’s end_  
>  _O Sophia, lay rest thy beasts of burden._

-

“It’s real beautiful here.”

Cloud turned her mug in her hands, still taking in the church she’d crashed through an hour before. It wasn’t just the miracle patch of flowers that made it lovely. The architecture was old fashioned, the elaborate stained glass windows still mostly within their soldered lead patterns.

“It was originally built in the 17th century,” Aeris said, proudly, “and remodeled early 20th century, I think? Before Midgar was built, that’s for sure.”

“A relic,” Cloud said. “Somethin’ standing from before all this Reunion shit.”

Aeris’s lips twitched, nearly a smirk. “Not a fan of our good Mother Goddess?”

“No,” Cloud said. She cupped her hand where the Fenrir token remained next to her skin. “Tell me how we’re doin’ just fine with Advent for two millennia, botherin’ nobody. But when the Shinra figured out how t’use Mako, they just _happened_ to find some new Gospel that gave ‘em a direct line to holy power?”

“I meannn, I guess it’s a little fishy. Whatever else, if we didn’t have reformation, we wouldn’t have the Advent,” Aeris said, hands swinging as she walked around beneath the colorful windows, each of them featuring a Saint. “We’d still be paying tribute to the Summons, like the Cetra told us to.”

“ _Told us to_ ,” Cloud echoed, sipping her tea. “Well, that turned out pretty bad for them, in the end, din’ it? Maybe it’ll happen to the Shinra.”

“Mayyybe,” Aeris said. She paused beneath one of the Saint’s windows, hand running beside the name plaque. It was a man in a beggar’s hood, a bandaged hand outstretched: Saint Tyr the Pauper. His Beast should have been beside him, curled around his knees, but even nature itself seemed to hold a grudge against the Wolf. Bedrock jutted through the bottom of the window, and all that Cloud could see of Fenri was his tail, curled at Tyr's hip.

"I still don't know where they got the Mother thing. With the Goddess, I mean," Aeris went on. "The Triad aren't supposed to be hands-on with the little folk unless they can help it. That's what the Summons were created for. The Triad _created_ the world, they butt in from time to time, but they don't _run_ it. The Goddess is meant to be untouchable, the froth of the ocean that brings life, a fount of all knowledge and infinite patience. She's not someone's _mother._ "

“Definitely not _mine_ ,” Cloud said, setting her empty mug on the dusty ground. “You should take up your concerns with the President, Aeris. Bet he'd love to hear them."

"Oh sure," Aeris said, rolling her eyes.

Cloud grinned. "I've heard he’s a real _mama’s_ boy, you know what I mean --"

“Ugh!” Aeris said, wagging a hand like she was fanning a foul stench. “Look, I _hate_ talking about religion. Let’s talk about how the hell you fell like, one billion feet and didn’t die.”

Cloud pursed her mouth. _I fell trying to blow up a Mako reactor with my rebel friends_ wasn’t something she wanted to broadcast. “Long story. Let’s just keep it at, ‘I fell’.”

“And _lived._ ”

“ _Clearly_.” Cloud sighed. “What d’you want me to say, Aeris?”

“Oh, sorry, I’m being kind of a jerk,” Aeris said. “I don’t need to know why you fell, I guess. I already know how you lived. You were in SOLDIER.”

Cloud went rigid. “How -- do you know that?”

Aeris gestured at her. “Your eyes are Mako touched.”

“Guess they are.” Cloud looked away quickly, down at her boots. President Shinra’s words remained a jumble of contradictions. _Had_ she been in SOLDIER? There was no denying that her eyes showed signs of the internal Mako treatments SOLDIERs underwent after they hit Second Class -- even her recent Mako poisoning wouldn’t account for that change. There was a brief crack of static, the warning of a blackout. Cloud shook her head to clear it, standing to leave.

“It don’t matter, I ain’t with them no more,” Cloud said, plucking the Buster and its back sheath from the ground, hoping Aeris didn’t notice her shaking hands. “I should really get going.”

“No, wait!” Aeris grabbed Cloud’s hand, gripping it with both of hers. “You uh -- you ever thought about being a bodyguard, Cloud? I mean, since you’re out of work right now, and all.”

“Huh,” Cloud said, gently tugging her arm away from Aeris. “I -- well, I’m tryin’ to settle into merc work. Figure that includes bodyguardin’, maybe.”

“Sure does,” the other woman said, tossing her head behind her. “Sooo, how about I give you the opportunity for some experience! Be my bodyguard for tonight, and I’ll pay you.”

Cloud’s nose wrinkled. “I do take payment up front.”

Aeris pouted. “Hey, I _healed_ you.”

“Didn’t ask you to,” Cloud said, folding her arms.

“I could reward you. With a date.”

“A date where you pay me?”

“Wow, you’re really kind of a jerk yourself!” Aeris flipped her braid behind her shoulder, huffing. “My _mom_ can pay you, how about that? She runs a clinic so she’s got some money. Just get me back in one piece and you’ll get your gil.”

“Look, I --” Cloud _did_ owe her, a little, at least for giving her a place to stay while she caught her breath. “I don’t mind helpin’ you, seeing how I owe you, but -- are you in some kind of trouble?”

“You _could_ say that,” a man’s voice called out from the entrance of the church. “But I’d be more worried about yourself, sweetheart.”

Cloud’s arm shot out in front of Aeris. Hired or not, she wasn’t about to let a strange man near a vulnerable woman. She had them both sidle towards the pulpit, now, as she surveyed the threat.

There was a cluster of Thirds around a man in a black suit, his skin a slate, inhuman white, his hair a brand of unnatural red. A long staff was in his hand, crackling briefly as he drug it across the church floor. He had a sleepy grin on his scarred face, and his eyes were pinned on Cloud in an appraising way that she didn’t like.

“Heyyy, babe,” he said, to Aeris. “Who’s your pretty new friend?”

“Ain’t your business,” Cloud snapped, her ears burning at the compliment. It was genuine, which made it terrible. “You got an appointment with my client, here?”

“ _Appointment_ ,” the man repeated, snorting. “Holy shit, okay. Yeah, I do. I’m just a few days early.”

“Then you gotta come back then,” Cloud said. “She’s booked for the evening.”

“Then show me to the waiting room,” the man said, cracking his neck side to side. “I can wait it out. You got any magazines?”

“You’re here to take me back,” Aeris said, abruptly. The buoyancy was stripped from her voice. “I was right. It’s finally begun.”

“I guess you could say that,” the man said. He twirled the prod in his hand like it was a performer’s baton, letting it sizzle like a storm. “And I’m on a time budget, so let’s get this party started.”

-

There was a ghost in the Sector Five church.

At least, a girl that _looked_ like a ghost. She was way too pale to be wearing dark clothes like she was, battered SOLDIER pauldrons reflecting the floodlights to give her skin an eerie aura. The ghost had straw-color hair that stuck out in about a hundred different directions and eyes bright enough to see in the dark. Literally; Reno had seen their Mako glow before she’d stepped up from the gloam. Next to the stranger, the assignment was a blaze of bright petal pink and rose red, auburn curls, contacts that toned down her own set of neon green eyes so people didn’t know she, too, was a god-damn mutant.

“Jus’ stay behind me,” the ghost whispered to the assignment. Her hand went to something strapped behind her, but the other woman yanked at her arm back.

“Don’t engage him,” the assignment pleaded.

“Aw, I thought I was going to have some fun today,” Reno said. “Though the day _is_ young.”

The assignment glared at Reno across the church, though he knew her well enough to know she was _alert_ , not _angry_. "My _pretty new friend_ is formerly SOLDIER, and she’s going to take me home,” she said. “And you know you can’t follow me _there._ ”

“Babe, you are making this wayyy more complicated than it needs to be,” Reno said. He turned towards the Thirds, their sweaty little palms itching on their rifles, their humid breaths too loud in his sensitive ears, and waved them away.

“Yo, you’re dismissed,” he said to them. “Go on, shoo. I’m fine.”

“Brave of you,” the assignment said, watching the Thirds scuttle away. “Thinking you can take a SOLDIER on all by yourself.”

"What are you doin’, Aeris?” the ghost hissed. “Don't _bait_ him! You said not to engage him!”

"I’m not,” the assignment that now called herself ‘Aeris’ said, "I -- he’s not lying, Cloud. He comes down here to check on me. So people know exactly where he is, and if he doesn’t come back --”

“Well, now he’s checked on you,” the ghost said, raising her voice now. “That’s good enough, ain’t it, fella? You can see yourself out, now.”

"Ooh, this one’s got a bit of bite," Reno said, laughing. “"Not your usual type, babe, maybe she’ll actually last.”

“I sure got a lot of _somethin’_ ,” and the ghost charged forward, empty handed, her head low. Reno realized she was going to _headbutt_ him, right in the middle of his chest. He danced back from the charge, but she turned on a dime, and she took a swing at him that narrowly missed his jaw. She lept backwards, her hands still raised, ready for his first move.

His first hit was lazy, testing her response time. She reflected the prod off her armored wrist like she was swatting a fly. The second swing caught against both her wrists, crossed in front of her face. He bore down with most of his weight and found out that she didn’t just have Mako eyes, she has Mako strength as well.

Up close the new girl _was_ pretty, in a drug chic kind of way. A couple years younger than him, maybe. Freckles on all that white canvas, with that bruised look natural blonds got, her face flushed with the heat of the fight. The ghost uncrossed her arms with a growl, forcing Reno backwards.

"Woah there sweetheart, let’s talk this out," he said, the prickle of excitement flickering up his spine as they began to circle each other. It’d been a long time since he’d had a _real_ challenge, one with the promise of honest pain. "Don't you worry your pretty head. I'm not here to hurt your old lady."

"Don't reckon you're here for anythin' good, though. She said you’re gonna take her, I believe her.”

"I'm just surprised," Reno said, thumb sliding near the charge switch of his staff. “It takes her a while to trick people into doing her bullshit. Isn’t that right, _‘Aeris’_?”

Reno spat the name like it was poison; ‘Aeris’ stiffened, her eyes slitting. There was a terrific thrum in the room, a pressure like a boom of thunder. Reno felt it in his bones like a sounding rod, from his teeth to the tips of his metal-toed shoes.

“If you’re wonderin’, she’s payin’ me to do her bullshit,” the ghost said. She seemed unphased by Aeris’s surprise show of power. “That’s all, _Turk_. Ain’t nothin’ more than that.”

"Oooh," Reno said, waggling a free set of fingers. "Took you a while to notice. You know who I am?”

"Yeah, I do, you’re --”

The girl blinked, and backed up. Her arms dropped, her eyes shut tight. Her teeth chattered: “No, I -- I’ve never met you -- I -- no, I _know_ you --”

She grasped her head with both her hands and it was as good an opening as any. Reno dove forward, prod now alive and crackling, and brought it right into the ghost’s side.

" _Cloud!_ " screamed ‘Aeris’. “Reno, don’t!”

The girl, Cloud, howled in pain. When she should’ve passed out. Reno amped up the charge. The girl grabbed Reno’s wrist. Her eyes burned into him when they should be rolling back in her head, instead. With this much juice, she should’ve been unconscious, half-dead.

"I know you, _Reno_ ," she said, steady as you please, with a manic smile on her white face and a voice that didn’t belong to her at all. “You’re Daddy’s precious little Red Star."

Reno hadn’t expected the rush of rage that came over him. For the first time he lost his cool, snarling, pushing the charge up as high as it would go. The ghost shrieked and Reno could finally see her getting weaker, ready to fall to her knees. Maybe she’d beg. Maybe she’d die. If she didn’t, he’d kill her anyway.

Reno flicked out a knife from his free wrist, imaging the blood he’d spill, when he slit the girl’s throat open, and the thunder struck again. The chandeliers shook, the windows rattled: a final warning.

Reno spit on the ground and drew his prod away. The girl staggered, put one knee to the ground, smoking from her side. She clasped her hand on the wound, muffling a whimper. The tingle of Restoration magic tickled Reno’s nose as she activated her Materia, gauzy green swirling around her.

The ghost stood up. She righted herself. She didn’t say anything, no intimate insults. She just looked at Reno with her god-awful Mako eyes, the pupils blowing out black. She just looked empty, emptier than even Reno had ever felt on his worst days.

Unnerved, he moved aside. He didn’t want to look at that fucking well of despair any longer than he had to.

Cloud sprinted past him towards ‘Aeris’. In the light of the busted church windows, Reno saw _it_ , strapped to the ghost’s back.

It was Angeal Penance's Buster Sword. When he’d died an ugly death, it had been passed to Zack Fair. When _he_ disappeared in a shitty mountain town nearly three years ago, Fair had it with him. Now, it was tacked on to some tiny little ghost with a shitty backwards mountain town accent and the ability to withstand a voltage high enough to kill a man ten times her size.

So it stood to reason she could kill a man twice her size, like Zack Fair. And that definitely meant she could kill a man close her size. Like Reno. Not to mention all of the wormy little Thirds outside the church.

Reno let them go. The fight hadn’t scratched his itch, but for once, getting his ass kicked wasn’t an exciting prospect. That Cloud girl was deadly, sure, but ‘Aeris’ was always going to be worse. If she wanted to, she could’ve turned Reno’s insides into jelly. It was infuriating to watch a woman like ‘Aeris’ fake weakness, scatter from danger like a frightened dormouse, hiding behind strangers when she’d never so much as needed help before. It was a little heartbreaking, too. No matter her attempts to escape her old life, they were futile.The inevitable would catch up with her sooner than later, and Reno would be there to see it through.

**Author's Note:**

> Credits: I'm collaborating and brainstorming this thing with my wife, Shoi. I'm using a script dump (from the old translation) and a walkthrough for reference. I don't think I'm going to follow every beat, though. Please be kind in comments, and let me know what you think!


End file.
